LAW531 Week 5 Report discussing legal concepts from Brief

Using the same case your team briefed this week, discuss how the legal concepts in the selected case can be applied within a business managerial setting. Give an example from real life experiences or current events. Explain how the rule discussed in the case have impacted the industry in past and what you see for the future. Discuss the positive and negative effect the case law has made on the industry.

"Waldo's working environment at Consumers was filled with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that was sufficient to create a hostile work environment."

—Moore, Circuit Judge

Facts

Theresa Waldo was employed by Consumers Energy Company of Michigan as an electrical line worker, a position that involved working in rural areas with electric lines containing high-voltage current attached to tall steel towers. She was the first woman employed by the company for this position. From the beginning of her employment, she was routinely subjected to sexual harassment. Waldo's male coworkers refused to work with her because she was female, making it clear that women were not welcome at the job. The crew members would not let her use the company truck to drive to find bathrooms to use. Her male coworkers urinated outdoors, and they told her, "You want to work in a man's world, pee like a guy." Waldo's coworkers locked her in a port-a-potty by taping the doors shut. Her coworkers displayed sexually explicit calendars, playing cards, and magazines in the trucks and at her places of work. They threw her purse out the window of a moving truck, excluded her from lunch trips, ostracized and ignored her at job sites, and at times refused to speak to her or work with her. Waldo was repeatedly called derogatory and demeaning names, such as "bitch," "wench," and other gender-specific demeaning language. Waldo reported these instances to her supervisor and to the human resources (HR) department of the company, but the company did not investigate or curb such abuses. Waldo sued Consumers in U.S. district court for sexual harassment in violation of Title VII. The jury rendered a verdict in favor of Waldo, awarding her $400,000 in compensatory damages and $7,500,000 in punitive damages, which the court reduced to $300,000 based on caps on damages established by federal law. The court also awarded $684,000 in attorney's fees and $38,000 for costs and fees. Consumers appealed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LAW531 Week 5 Learning Team Assignment Week 5 IRAC Brief

The week's assignment concerns briefing a case from the readings. You can pick any case from the readings. You must pick an actual court case and give the citation. The brief should concern a legal case that is relevant to the following Week 5, Agency, Employment and Labor Law, objectives.

 

Brief the case. Use the IRAC methodology. Discuss the:

 

• I: Issue
• R: Rule
• A: Analysis
• C: Conclusion

 The brief is followed by discussion of whether your team agrees or disagrees with the court opinion.

 The paper is a minimum 1000 words in length

"Waldo's working environment at Consumers was filled with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that was sufficient to create a hostile work environment."

—Moore, Circuit Judge

Facts

Theresa Waldo was employed by Consumers Energy Company of Michigan as an electrical line worker, a position that involved working in rural areas with electric lines containing high-voltage current attached to tall steel towers. She was the first woman employed by the company for this position. From the beginning of her employment, she was routinely subjected to sexual harassment. Waldo's male coworkers refused to work with her because she was female, making it clear that women were not welcome at the job. The crew members would not let her use the company truck to drive to find bathrooms to use. Her male coworkers urinated outdoors, and they told her, "You want to work in a man's world, pee like a guy." Waldo's coworkers locked her in a port-a-potty by taping the doors shut. Her coworkers displayed sexually explicit calendars, playing cards, and magazines in the trucks and at her places of work. They threw her purse out the window of a moving truck, excluded her from lunch trips, ostracized and ignored her at job sites, and at times refused to speak to her or work with her. Waldo was repeatedly called derogatory and demeaning names, such as "bitch," "wench," and other gender-specific demeaning language. Waldo reported these instances to her supervisor and to the human resources (HR) department of the company, but the company did not investigate or curb such abuses. Waldo sued Consumers in U.S. district court for sexual harassment in violation of Title VII. The jury rendered a verdict in favor of Waldo, awarding her $400,000 in compensatory damages and $7,500,000 in punitive damages, which the court reduced to $300,000 based on caps on damages established by federal law. The court also awarded $684,000 in attorney's fees and $38,000 for costs and fees. Consumers appealed.

Issue

Is Consumers liable for sexual harassment?

Language of the Court

Based on the totality of evidence presented to the jury, the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that the clear weight of the evidence demonstrated that Waldo's working environment at Consumers was filled with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that was sufficient to create a hostile work environment. Additionally, it was not an abuse of discretion to find that the clear weight of the evidence demonstrated that Consumers' response to the complaints of harassment was inadequate.

Decision

The U.S. court of appeals affirmed the U.S. district court's finding of sexual harassment and the award of damages, attorney's fee, and costs.

 

 

LAW531 Week 4 Report discussing legal concepts from Brief

Using the same case your team briefed this week, discuss how the legal concepts in the selected case can be applied within a business managerial setting. Give an example from real life experiences or current events. Explain how the rule discussed in the case have impacted the industry in past and what you see for the future. Discuss the positive and negative effect the case law has made on the industry.

 The paper is a minimum 1000 words in length

 

Case: Ethics Coca-Cola Employee Tries to Sell Trade Secrets to Pepsi-Cola

LAW531- Week 4 Learning Team Assignment Week 4 IRAC Brief

The week's assignment concerns briefing a case from the readings. You can pick any case from the readings. You must pick an actual court case and give the citation. The brief should concern a legal case that is relevant to the following Week 4, Contracts and Property Law, objectives.

 

Brief the case. Use the IRAC methodology. Discuss the:

 

• I: Issue
• R: Rule
• A: Analysis
• C: Conclusion

 

 

The brief is followed by discussion of whether your team agrees or disagrees with the court opinion.

 

The paper is a minimum 1000 words in length

 

Ethics Coca-Cola Employee Tries to Sell Trade Secrets to Pepsi-Cola

"What if you knew the markets Coca-Cola was going to move into and out of and beat them to the punch."

—Letter to PepsiCo

PepsiCo received a letter sent to the company by an employee of Coca-Cola Company that offered to sell PepsiCo trade secrets of Coca-Cola. The letter stated, "What if you knew the markets Coca-Cola was going to move into and out of and beat them to the punch." The letter proposed selling trade secrets regarding a proposed Coke product code-named Project Lancelot for $1.5 million.

PepsiCo notified Coca-Cola officials and federal authorities. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) initiated an investigation into the matter. The federal government brought criminal charges against Coca-Cola secretary Joya Williams. During trial, prosecutors produced the letter as well as a video-recording of Williams putting confidential documents and samples of Coke products that were still in development into her bag.

Williams was convicted by a federal jury of conspiring to steal Coca-Cola trade secrets and attempting to sell them to archrival PepsiCo. The trial court judge sentenced Williams to 8 years in jail. The U.S. court of appeals upheld the decision. Two other co-conspirators were arrested and pled guilty. United States v. Williams, 526 F.3d 1312, 2008 U.S. App. Lexis 6073 (United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, 2008)

 

 

 

 

 

LAW531 Week 3 Learning Team Assignment Week 3 IRAC Brief

The week's assignment concerns briefing a case from the readings. You can pick any case from the readings. You must pick an actual court case and give the citation. The brief should concern a legal case that is relevant to the following Week 3, Torts and Criminal Law, objectives.

 Brief the case. Use the IRAC methodology. Discuss the:

 

• I: Issue
• R: Rule
• A: Analysis
• C: Conclusion

 The brief is followed by discussion of whether your team agrees or disagrees with the court opinion.

 The paper is a minimum 1000 words in length

Ethics Ouch! McDonald's Coffee Is Too Hot!

McDonald's Corporation found itself embroiled in one of the most famous negligence cases of modern times. Stella Liebeck, a 79-year-old resident of Albuquerque, New Mexico, visited a drive-through window of a McDonald's restaurant with her grandson Chris. Her grandson, the driver of the vehicle, placed the order for breakfast. When breakfast came at the drive-through window, Chris handed a hot cup of coffee to Stella. Chris pulled over so that Stella could put cream and sugar in her coffee. Stella took the lid off the coffee cup she held in her lap and the hot coffee spilled in her lap. The coffee spilled all over Stella, who suffered third-degree burns on her legs, thighs, groin, and buttocks. Stella was driven to the emergency room and was hospitalized for seven days. She required medical treatment and later returned to the hospital to have skin grafts. She suffered permanent scars from the incident.

Stella's medical costs were $11,000. Stella asked McDonald's to pay her $20,000 to settle the case, but McDonald's offered only $800. Stella refused this settlement and sued McDonald's in court for negligence for selling coffee that was too hot and for failing to warn her of the danger of the hot coffee it served. At trial, McDonald's denied that it had been negligent and asserted that Stella's own negligence—opening a hot coffee cup on her lap—had caused her injuries. The jury heard the following evidence:

·         McDonald's enforces a quality-control rule that requires its restaurants and franchises to serve coffee at 180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit.

·         Third-degree burns occur on skin in just two to five seconds when coffee is served at 185 degrees.

·         McDonald's coffee temperature was 20 degrees hotter than coffee served by competing restaurant chains.

·         McDonald's coffee temperature was approximately 40 to 50 degrees hotter than normal house-brewed coffee.

·         McDonald's had received more than 700 prior complaints of people who had been scalded by McDonald's coffee.

·         McDonald's did not place a warning on its coffee cups to alert patrons that the coffee it served was exceptionally hot.

Based on this evidence, the jury concluded that McDonald's acted recklessly and awarded Stella $200,000 in compensatory damages, which was then reduced by $40,000 because of her own negligence, and $2.7 million in punitive damages. The trial court judge reduced the amount of punitive damages to $480,000, which was three times the amount of compensatory damages. McDonald's now places a warning on its coffee cups that its coffee is hot. Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants, P.T.S., Inc. (New Mexico District Court, Bernalillo County, New Mexico, 1994)

 

LAW531 Week 2 Week 2 Individual Report on Business Forms

Resources: Legal Environment of Business: Online Commerce, Business Ethics, and Global Issues:  Ch. 14, 15, 16 and 17; Week 2 Electronic Reserve Readings; Legal Source database located in the Week 2 Electronic Reserve Readings

Scenario: You are sole proprietor presenting to a group of investors where you are seeking 20 million dollars to raise capital for your manufacturing company.

Prepare a memo discussing the following to investors:

Choose the one form of organization best suited for your manufacturing company and explain why:

• Partnership
• Limited Liability Partnership
• Limited Liability Company (including single member LLC)
• S Corporation
• Franchise
• Corporation

Explain for the investors which form of organization (from the list above) would be the least suited and why?

(The legal form an entity or individual takes is a decision that must be considered from a risk and liability perspective, not simply one of ease of formation or cost. Form can impact the entities ability to grow and, in some circumstances, its ability to survive. As you consider this reality and approach this assignment, consider not only the form the business takes but also the way it will be governed. Remember the law requires business leaders conduct their business ethically and within the boundaries of the law.)   

Summarize for investors what legal liabilities could arise for the Director or officer of that board?
Explain how you could minimize those liabilities for the Director or officer of that board.

A minimum word count of 1000 words is needed.

 

 

 

LAW531 Week 1 ADR Clause

Create an ADR clause may be used in any Learning Team throughout the program

The clause should include at least one type of ADR to be used in Learning Teams to resolve disputes.

 The clause will identifies possible learning team disputes that are subject to ADR and should include all provisions necessary to enable ADR to occur.

 Word count - A minimum word count of 500 words